The present invention relates to apparatuses and methods for biometric authentication and, more particularly, to using fractional components of different biometrics in a multi-layer authentication process for mobile financial transactions.
It has been estimated that the magnitude of credit card fraud in the United States alone is $8.7 billion annually. Identity theft in the context of wireless mobile communication devices used to make financial transactions is even more difficult to prevent since mobile networks are less secure. Despite the risks of fraud, there is a strong demand to use mobile communication devices to make purchases of goods and services. For many people such purchases are more convenient than those made from a fixed location, just like for many people mobile telephones are more convenient to use than land line phones.
There is therefore a compelling need for a method and a system for stopping credit card theft and other identity theft using improved authentication methods in the context of mobile financial transactions.